Our Factory Tour of Lakland Bass in Chicago

We recently visited the new Lakland factory in Chicago so we thought it would be interesting to show you what goes on inside. Lakland is located in the Ravenswood area of Chicago which is just a few blocks South of our Lincoln Square shop. It's an industrial section of the city known for converted WWII munitions factories and warehouses. You won't see high speed assembly lines here. Skyline basses are Pleked and assembled one at a time and the US series basses are built from scratch by master Luthiers.

When we first entered the factory we noticed a number of workstations. Each Luthier has a a supply of components and of course a lot of space.

Here we have a group of Skyline basses ready for running through the Plek station. Skyline basses are partially built overseas then Pleked and final assembly takes place here in Chicago.

This hybrid production process provides high quality Skyline Series basses at an incredibly low price.

The Plek station is an incredibly impressive piece of hardware. This CNC (computer numerical controlled) high precision milling machineprovides nut slotting, bridge slotting and does an incredible job of fret dressing to provide an incredibly comfortable playable bass.

No that's not a wedge bass, the neck is attached to a form before entering the Plek.

A Luthier works on a US series bass neck. US series basses are still hand crafted using old school processes which result in hand crafted bass masterpieces.

Rather than utilize off the shelf pickups Lakland winds their own pickups which provides that awesome lakland tone.

Here we see a pickup winder station as well as several pickup coils on a bench ready for assembly.

Another Luthier works on a US Series bass with several partially completed bases sitting by his bench.

Here's the storage area of the factory. As you can see they have quite a few basses ready to ship out.

That's it for our tour. Lakland runs a very efficient operation which enables them to offer high quality basses at a very affordable price. Give us a shout or drop us an email for our best price on a Lakland bass. Lakland Bass Quote Request